The ‘More Revenues’ Motivation Behind Global Warming Bills

The San Francisco Chronicle [update: and other Bay Area media] interviews Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, eliciting this revealing admission about the impetus for House action this year on cap-and-trade legislation.

The speaker disappointed environmentalists when she said earlier this month that she may not bring climate change legislation to the House floor this year because it may lack the votes needed for passage. “I’m not sure this year, because I don’t know if we’ll be ready,” she told Capitol Hill reporters. “We won’t go before we’re ready.”

But in the interview Wednesday, she shifted her stance, saying she plans to move the bill this year. She said she hopes to hold a vote before December, when climate negotiators gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to work on a successor to the treaty many countries adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.

“I believe we have to because we see that as a source of revenue,” she said, noting that proposed cap-and-trade bills would raise billions of dollars by forcing major emitters to buy credits to release greenhouse gases. “Cap-and-trade is there for a reason. You cap and you trade so you can pay for some of these investments in energy independence and renewables.”